Athletic Advantage Review

Written by Jack Woodrup for VerticalJumping.com

The Athletic Advantage jump program, whilst now onto version 2, is still relatively new onto the market. Unlike many programs available, we actually like this one. It is not without its flaws, but it is certainly better than most.

Quality of Information

The training information provided in Athletic Advantage is more relevant and concise then most programs. It goes into enough detail about training, nutrition and recovery to ensure the athlete understands and can apply the principles, but not so much that they are overwhelmed and have to read through everything several times just to take it all in.

As far as the training information goes it is generally pretty good - except for the fatal flaw that EDT based programs such as this have. In the booklet that comes with this program it describe the formuala for Power for jumping workouts as Power = (Repetitions x Height)/Timeframe. For weight training workouts it says Power = (Reps x Weight)/Time. Then it goes on to say that one of the ways we can we can increase power is by doing more reps. This is an outright fallacy. It is confusing work done over the course of a training session. If this formula was true then 800M runners would be more powerful than 100M sprinters, and 5000M runners would be more powerful then 800M runners.

I mena if you think about it a 100M specialist is not going to run the 800M as fast as an 800M specialist. So in the about 2 minutes the 800M runner will have performed more reps than the 100M runner who might only have completed 700M in the same time. The reality is that Power is not how much work you can do in an extended time frame such as over the course of a workout, but how much work you can do in an instant.

Aside from the dodgy logic upon which the programs are built the important areas of recovery and nutrition are very well covered.

In terms of the exercises prescribed in the program, most are all tried and tested winners (although we were highly bemused by the video demonstrating how to do proper squats that were not only performed using a Smith Machine of all things, but were also well above what would normally be considered acceptable depth).

The breakdown of the program that Athletic Advantage prepared for us involved 3 days of jumping and weight training for legs and 2 days of upper body work. The lower body work provided was very CNS intense with a fairly high volume of jumping. The upper body work at least was just limited to a shoulder routine and some core work. This is a very good thing as it allows more emphasis to be placed on the key jumping muscles and doesn't eat into your recovery time. To see our full view on this particular topic check out upper body training.

Customization

When it comes to customization of your program, Athletic Advantage on the surface seems pretty good. The program requires pre-testing the athlete to determine his or her strength and weaknesses. It also offers a bodyweight only program for those without access to weight training equipment.

However, and this is the downside, no matter what we input into our pre-test results, the software never seemed to change our prescribed program very much, and not once did it prepare a program that would have developed relative strength which leads me to be highly suspicious as to exactly how customized the programs really are.

Presentation

Unlike most programs the Athletic Advantage isn't currently a download so you have to wait a few days to receive it. However, when it arrives you will notice that the quality of the product is a big step above your regular ebook. For starters there is a handy reference book that comes with it that has the key information, the exercise descriptions, the recovery principles, as well as a lot more that you can carry with you as a quick guide.

All the information in the book is also provided on the disk. The disk contains the JumpSoft program builder as well as a few other goodies. The production values of Athletic Advantage really are top notch and are to be commended.

Value For Money

In our opinion the new price of $47.00 for Athletic Advantage would have been truly fantastic if the software really did what it says it does - and that is create customized programs. Sadly, it doesn't. Every program that we got out of the software was basically the same EDT based, high plyo type workouts. Admittedly, the rest of the product is of a high quality but I can't understand why people would pay for bad training information , when more accurate information freely available on the internet (actually all of it plus a whole lot more is freely available on this very site).

There are a couple of nice bonuses on supplementation and mental training, but there really isn't too much need extra material because it is all well covered in the actual program.

Conclusion

Athletic Advantage might be a good program if you are already quite strong. It is easy to use, nicely put together, but unfortunately isn't based on sound training principles. If we had to make a some criticisms it would be that it seems to be too focused on competing directly with the Vertical Project (another EDT based program). As a consequnce it seems to have made the same mistakes (albeit for a MUCH cheaper price) such as its reliance on EDT as a means of progression and total hype marketing strategies.

To check out the Athletic Advantage website click on the link below:

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Garbage program 
I used this program, and I gained about an inch. It is a bunch of BS. It doesn't work. All it does is train endurance, not explosive power. It's better ...

Not worth it  Not rated yet
I ordered Athletic Advantage thinking I could gain a few inches just to get to dunking. I did the whole program and nothing came. They do bs workouts....